“I need to talk to Annie McGowan immediately. This is an emergency.”
“Can I tell her who’s calling please?”
“Tell her Red Horse.”
A moment later McGowan was on the line. “Red Horse?”
“Annie, there’s been another killing. Have you heard yet?”
“No.” Her voice was quick, excited. “Where’s it at?”
“It’s a hooker at Randy’s Motel, down on Hennepin. Young girl. Her street name was Heather Brown. We’ve got people on the scene right now, you better get a crew up there. And let me give you one more piece of information about him, that our shrinks worked out. The chief and the other detectives will probably try to deny it, because they don’t want this kind of sensitive information getting out, but we were expecting him to kill a hooker.”
“Jeez, why?”
“Our shrinks think the guy is probably so ugly, so unattractive to women that not only can’t he get it up, he can’t get a woman on his own, either. One probably contributes to the other. We don’t know that it’s appearance, though. Maybe it’s body chemistry or something. You know, maybe he’s got like world-class body odor.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, you get the idea. Really repellent, like a human lizard. I wouldn’t give this to anybody, but I liked the way you blended my last tip, about the impotence, into your story. Now that he’s killed the hooker, I think maybe this last piece of information will give the Now Report viewers some exclusive insight into the mind of a serial murderer, you know.”
“This is really heavy, Luca . . . uh, Red Horse. Let me get this stuff going and I’ll get back to you. Are you at home?”
“No. I’m way up north, three hours away. I’m about to start back, I’ll get there just before midnight. I’ll be at my house, probably, sometime after one o’clock, and I’ll be up until three or so. If you have to call, call then.”
“Okay. Thanks, Red Horse.”
Carla was on the dock, wrapped in the flannel shirt.
“You going?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll walk you up to your car.”
“I wanted to spend more time,” he said.
“So come back.”
“If I can.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her and she clung to him for a moment, then broke away and turned to the cabin. Lucas dropped into the Porsche, brought it around in a circle, and headed back to the Cities.
Driving at speed on the narrow roads of the North Woods thrilled him, but he usually did it in the daytime. At night the roadside timber seemed to step in, to press closer to the road. He overran his headlights, brush and phone poles flicking in and out of his vision without leaving time for thought.
Thirty miles out, just across the Minnesota border, he passed a roadside rest and the red lights came up behind him as a highway-patrol car burst onto the road.
Lucas wrenched the car to the shoulder and climbed out with his badge case in his hand. The patrolman was already on the road, one hand on his weapon, the other holding a long steel flashlight.
“I’m a Minneapolis cop making an emergency run back to the Cities,” Lucas said as he walked toward the patrolman, extending the badge case. “Lieutenant Lucas Davenport. The maddog killer just ripped a hooker, a little girl. I’m trying to get back.”
“Uh-huh,” the patrolman said. He looked at the badge case and ID card with his light, then flashed it momentarily in Lucas’ face.
“If you can call your dispatcher and have them patch you through to our dispatch—”
“I’ve seen you on TV,” the patrolman said. He handed the badge case back. “I’m not going to give you a ticket, but a word to the wise, okay? I clocked you at eighty-three miles an hour. If you drive from here to the Interstate at fifty-five instead of eighty-three, it’ll cost you an extra two minutes. If you drive at eighty-three and you hit a deer or a bear, you’ll be dead. You’re lucky you haven’t hit one already. They’re really moving right now. You hit a big old sow-bear broadside with that car, it’d be like hitting a brick wall.”
“Right. I’m just sort of freaked out.”
“Well, cool off,” said the patrolman. “I’ll call up ahead, tell the guys on the Interstate that you’re trying to make up a little extra time. Keep it under a hundred and they won’t hassle you, once you get on the Interstate.”
“Thanks, man.” Lucas headed back to his car.
“Hey, Davenport.”
Lucas stopped with the door half-open. “Yeah?”
“Get that cocksucker.”
The motel was a shabby single-story L-shaped building with a permanent hand-painted vacancy sign. There were a half-dozen squad cars and four television trucks parked in front when Lucas rolled in. He saw Jennifer and, further down the street, Annie McGowan, both with cameramen. Lucas squeezed the Porsche between two squad cars, got out, locked it, and started toward the yellow tape that blocked the motel driveway.
“Lucas.”
“Hey, Jennifer . . .”
“You son of a bitch, you fed her another one.”
“Who?”
“You know who. McGowan.” Jennifer turned her head to glare down the street at the other woman.
“I did not,” Lucas lied. “I was up north at my cabin, for Christ’s sake.”
“Well, somebody’s feeding her select stuff. She’s laughing up her sleeve at the rest of us.”
“That’s the way it goes in the news biz, huh?” He crouched and slipped under the tape. “Give me a call tomorrow, I’ll see if I can get something for you.”
“Hey, Lucas, you’re not still angry? About the Smithe thing?”
“We have to talk,” he said. “We have to figure out some kind of arrangement. You off tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“So I’ll take you to dinner somewhere private. We’ll work something out.”
“Great.” She smiled and he turned and saw Anderson standing in a crowd outside the motel manager’s office.
“So what?” he asked, taking Anderson by the sleeve.
“Come on down and take a look.” He led the way toward the rear of the motel.
“Who found her?”
“The night clerk,” Anderson said, glancing back. “The girl’d stop by and rap on the window when she was coming and going. She rapped going in, but never came back out. After a while, he kind of stuck his head out and says he saw this crack of light around her door. The killer apparently didn’t pull it all the way shut when he left. That made the clerk curious and he walked down and knocked. And there she was.”
“Did he see the killer? The clerk?”
“Uh-uh. He says he didn’t see anybody.”
“This clerk, is it Vinnie Short?”
“I don’t know his name,” Anderson said. “He’s short, though.”
Heather Brown was bound like the others, but unlike the others, her arms were stretched out at right angles to her body, as though she’d been crucified. The handle of the knife protruded from her chest under her breastbone. Her head was turned to one side, her eyes and mouth open. Her tongue stuck out, obscenely pale. She had long narrow scars on her thighs, white against her too-even machine tan.
“I don’t know her,” Lucas said. A vice officer walked in. “You know her?” Lucas asked.
“Seen her around a few times, she’s been on the street a couple years,” the vice cop said. “She used to be over on University, in St. Paul, but her old man OD’d on crank and she disappeared for a while.”
“You’re talking about Louis the White?”
“Yeah. See the scars on her legs? That was Louis’ trademark. Used to beat them with coat hangers. Said it never took more than twice.”
“But he’s dead,” said Lucas.
“Eight months ago. Good riddance. But I’ll tell you something. His girls did the specialty tricks. Golden showers, bondage, spanking, like that. So this guy may have known her. The way she’s tied up . . . it’d be hard to tie somebody up like that if she wasn’t cooperating.”
“You guys don’t know who’s running her now?”
“Nope. Haven’t seen her around for a while,” said the vice cop.